Quote:
Originally Posted by Janszoon
But what if they're already on their way!  |
That could of course be
My comment was an answer to Hawking's warning that people shouldn't try to contact aliens. If you send radiowaves into space, trying to get into contact with aliens .. it could take millions upon millions of years before they reach a different civilization! Then they'd have to travel here in response. By the time someone recieves our signals and trace them to our planet, we're likely to be extinct. Then it would be someone elses problem entirely.
If our planet is or has been discovered, I don't think it has or will be because of our attempts to communicate. We humans have already started searching for other earth like planets in other solar systems which is of course possible since celestial bodies reflect and emit radiation. Basically, you can see them with a big enough telescope, directly because of reasons mentioned or indirectly as they f.ex pass in front of other celestial bodies which emit radiation. Our own planet should be discoverable by the same means .. and at least planet earth has been broadcasting that sort of information since it's birth some few billion years ago which is a bit longer than modern attempts with antennas and information capsules.
edit :
It's so funny that people are worrying about this